Annotating the Web Archives – An Exploration of Web Archives Cataloging and Semantic Web

Despite the success of Internet access via search technology, it has become increasing plain that such a mode is inadequate when applied to holdings in a Web Archives. A greater amount of relevant contextual information is essential in accessing Web Archives. The degree of relevance of the contextual information has to be customized to suit research on culture and heritage study over time. Information scientists have long been struggling to find a system that can help them organize Web Archives so that users can have access to complete and coherent collections. In this paper, we demonstrated how annotation, more than just an intuitive way of expressing one’s thoughts on the materials under study, is in fact an appropriate tool for cataloging web archives in order to ensure a high quality of access for users. After a demonstration of access to archived web materials, we recommended a way of organizing web archives based on several design principles for a web annotation system that preserves the evidence and context of the cataloging process. Only by adhering to these principles can web archives cataloging be said to have incorporated the collaborative cataloging ideals of the semantic web movement. Implementing our web annotation system will help ensure better quality archives with more evidence and contextual information preserved within the system.